Job 32-34

[wolfpurplemoon]

Just read an appropriate post at Pharyngula: The idea that the Bible should be interpreted as a metaphor is a good one — because it melts the superstition away.. I guess I need to stop trying to take every word of the bible literally, not that I know how else to take it.

Elihu was showing respect for his elders by just listening while they squabbled, but now they've reached a dead end in their discussion he's decided to let them know he thinks their arguments were flawed. He is very sure that he knows better than them.

Comments

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

You say that you have never seen any evidence or support for the claim of parts of Luke being apparently created to burnish a legend. You somehow forgot our earlier correspondence. King Herod and Quirinius were not contemporaries. Luke says they were. Augustus never ordered an empire-wide census, Luke says he did. No Roman official has ever required a person to report to the village of a long-dead ancestor to be registered. Luke says it was so.

As I see it, you have three choices:

1. The author of Luke is correct and accurate. Any seeming errors are due to my limited understanding or the snares of the Evil One. .

2. Luke made mistakes about these historical points, but was still absolutely correct about non-historical points such as the Annunciation, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, etc. Moreover, no later scribe thought to correct Luke's errors.

3. Somebody put together bits of Isaiah including the misinterpretation of the word "almah" as "virgin" rather than "young woman", as well as a bit about Bethlehem from Micah and thought that it would be really great if the stories about this Jesus fellow could be said to have fulfilled (unrelated) ancient prophecies. I referred to this as "burnishing a legend."

Take your pick.

LiveJournal limits the number of characters I can use in a single response, so I'm dividing this up into three parts. Read on for why history and miracles don't mix.

[vequenor.livejournal.com]

As I told you earlier: Luke never mentions Herod the Great. He mentions a ruler of Jedea named Herod, which could easily have been any of Herod the Great's sons who were contemporaries of Quirinius. There is no record of Augustus ordering a census; that does not mean that he did not order one, and, even so, such a minor point would hardly tell against the over-all accuracy of any other document. Thirdly, as I already told you, Luke does not say that anyone was required to go to their home town, merely that people did so. As such, I really wish you wouldn't just ignore previous discussion as you see fit and deliver false ultimatums.